Trump's royal faux pas: What POTUS got wrong about his meeting with the queen

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USA Today

Updated: Jul 18, 2018 - 12:20 PM

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Trump's royal faux pas: What POTUS got wrong about his meeting with the queen

Of all the mistakes President Donald Trump tried to fix Tuesday after his disastrous press conference in Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he still managed to make another mistake involving his more sedate meeting with Queen Elizabeth II last week.

The big news of the day in Washington was Trump's walking back his remarks on Monday, when he seemed to say he believes Putin's denials more than the American intelligence community's assessment of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

On Tuesday, in a statement he read to reporters at the White House, Trump said he wanted to clarify that he misspoke in Helsinki, using the word "would" instead of "wouldn't."

"I said the word 'would' instead of 'wouldn't.' ... The sentence should have been 'I don't see any reason why I wouldn't,' or 'why it wouldn't be Russia.' "

Who told him that? Surely no one at Windsor Castle, because it's not true. The queen, 92, has been Her Majesty since 1952; at 66 years and counting, it's the longest reign in British history but it's not 70 years yet.

Secondly, the queen meets foreign dignitaries practically every week and regularly inspects her Honor Guard at many ceremonies. She has met 12 sitting presidents, including Trump, and pacing down lines of scarlet-clad troops is a regular feature of the pageantry the British royals put on for guests.

In fact, when President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama first called on the queen at the palace in April 2009, just months after taking office, the only other royal there for the audience was the queen's husband, Prince Philip, now 97, who has since retired from public life.

Speaking of Obama, his name was dropped in another wacky story making the rounds Tuesday on Twitter: the story about "brooch warfare."

Supposedly, the pieces of shoulder jewelry the queen chose to wear in public during the three days Trump was in the United Kingdom were subtle jabs at Trump, especially the American State Visit Brooch, a vintage bauble consisting of a small green flower that was a personal gift from the Obamas during their state visit in 2011.

The queen has many brooches (it's a favorite form of jewelry for her), but this one was a natural choice as it perfectly complemented her green-and-yellow flowered dress.

Others theorized that the brooch she wore when she met Trump, a diamond paisley-shaped stunner she inherited from her mother, who made it famous by wearing it at the funeral of her husband, King George VI, in 1952, also was a slap at Trump although it wasn't made clear why it would be controversial: The queen has often worn this brooch.

The bottom line is the queen never jabs in public, either obviously or in a subtle way. It's just not done.